Your Ultimate Prospect Fix

CommentsDelmon Young (left), Josh Hamilton (center) and Andruw Jones (right) were all listed as top MLB prospects. Did their careers end up matching their ranking? (AP Images)

This week, MLB.com, Keith Law and Baseball Prospectus came out with their top prospects lists. Like most baseball fans, I'm obsessed with prospect lists in a way that is entirely irrational. I couldn't name you the 20th man on most major league rosters -- if you pressed me at this exact second, I'd be unable to tell you who the Twins' starting second baseman is -- but I'll pore through prospect rankings like they're the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This is because prospects are perfect. Prospects never grow old, never disappoint us, never are sullied with the oppressive and banal expectations of real life. That only happens to them when they become actual Major League Baseball players. Prospects, they're always the same age. I can look at Miguel Sano or Oscar Taveras and imagine them for what I imagine them to be, rather than what they are, or will actually be. It's only later, when the average fan has seen all these players on the field, that prospect rankings are sullied by the drudgery of reality. Now, they're all going to be Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw, and they're all going to change everything.

To remind myself that prospect lists are simply lists of (potential) future major leaguers rather than angels sent from above to be platonically ideal baseball humans, I decided to go back through 16 years of Baseball America prospect rankings. Sixteen years is a solid sample size: Those are full careers spanning those rankings. At one point, those were perfect prospects with their whole lives in front of them. Now, most of them are just people who have ruined your fantasy team. Here's a look, from 1994 through 2009.

1994

Cliff Floyd

Chipper Jones

Jeffrey Hammonds

Alex Gonzalez

Carlos Delgado

Alex Rodriguez

Manny Ramirez

James Baldwin

Rondell White

Jose Silva

Other notables: 14. Chan Ho Park; 16. Derek Jeter; 17, Javy Lopez; 28. Shawn Green; 31. Johnny Damon; 51. Raul Mondesi; 63. Derek Lowe; 71. Armando Benitez; 78. Billy Wagner; 92. LaTroy Hawkins.Hall of Famers (or potential Hall of Famers): 2. That's Jeter and Chipper. A-Rod and Manny have the numbers to be in, and you can make an argument, maybe, for Delgado.Top 10 Busts: They all made the majors and most had halfway decent careers. Jose Silva had the worst, with a career ERA of 5.41.Class Ranking (out of 10): 9. Take away PEDs, and you've got four solid Hall of Famers in the top 10. Tough to beat that.

Everything else is probably too soon to tell. (Some of the players on the 2010 list are still trying to work their way to the majors.) The point is: Prospects look a lot more ordinary in retrospect than they do in the moment. You'll never love your prospects more than right now.